“And who am I?”
“Calli…”
“No. You lost that privilege. You will refer to me as Boss. Let me hear it so I know we are on the same page.”
“B…Boss.”
“Good bitch.” I smiled, rising up. “However, I think I’ll keep some collateral, just in case you forget later. Italo.”
He gave me my pistol, which was now in a zip lock bag. I could only presume he had gotten it from the kitchen.
“I know how much you love Chloe, so I’ll tell her I lied. That you never had anything to do with what happened to her. That way, you both can go back to playing house. But she’ll never trust a word from me again and won’t allow me inside your house to take your other arm. If you forget what you are to me… I’ll leave this gun, covered in her fingerprints at some horrible scene of a crime. And by the time the police figure out how a b
lind woman could possibly have done it, what is left of her mental state might have fully shattered this time.”
“Big boy is fading,” Vinnie replied, grabbing his shoulders as he started to slump.
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Take care of him then. Can’t have my new bitch dying on me on his first day.”
Walking toward the door, I glanced out the window, looking around the block at all the families playing in their yards. Stepping back, I caught a glimpse of myself, and even worse, my new coat, and groaned. “I really liked this coat.” I frowned, looking back at them.
Dino looked up from Big Tillio to me. “Versace?
I shook my head. “Oscar de la Renta!”
“Expensive.” He nodded.
“I know, I got so angry that I forgot I had it on. I was hoping to start on a nicer goddamn foot, but apparently, everyone only speaks one language in this city. Violence.”
“Good thing you’re fluent in that language,” Vinnie muttered under his breath.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Nothing. Just wondering what to do with the arm.”
“Wrap it up. I’m giving it as a gift.”
All of their eyes shot back to me, but I ignored them, heading up the stairs. I needed a shower.
14
“The past is always with us,
waiting to mess with the present.”
~ Cecily von Zieges
CALLIOPE
“I failed. There wasn’t enough time. I’m sorry,” I said into the phone, and Ethan didn’t say a word.
The only reply I got instead was a dead line as the phone disconnected.
I glanced up at the clear blue sky. It was not the weather I wanted for a day like this. Tearing my eyes away, I walked up to the Old Gentleman Bar & Lounge on the corner of Smith and Wesson. Yes, like the gun. No, it was no accident. The door was painted a deep green with amber-colored glass. When I pushed it open, there was a soft chime, and the smell of sandalwood and musk slapping me across the face.
“Sorry, sweetheart, men only today,” the tall man behind the bar said when I walked in.
There were only a few dozen men, all spread throughout the old-school dive bar. It even had one of those jukeboxes, which played Frank Sinatra’s “My Kind of Town” gently in the background. On the walls were models of women who were now most likely as old and wrinkled as the men, all pretending to watch a boxing match on the television.